Retainer mechanisms are well known in the art and primarily function to hold the shoes of a piston assembly against a swashplate of an axial piston machine. A well known problem with axial piston machines is keeping the shoes in contact with the swashplate or keeping the shoes from tipping with respect to the swashplate. Many different styles of shoe plates have been used in an attempt to overcome the above noted problems. A widely utilized design of shoe plates include a circular shape with a flat surface on one side and a plurality of openings defined therein to receive the respective shoes. The flat surface of the shoe plate encircles a neck portion of the respective shoes and contacts an adjacent flat bearing surface. A force is applied to the shoe plate to hold the shoe plate against the respective shoes and thus hold the respective shoes against the swashplate.
One of the problems associated with this type of shoe plate is that the shoe plate is distorted when the force is applied to it. A distorted shoe plate delivers unequal contact on the bearing surface of the shoes and ultimately leads to the shoe tipping. Once the shoe tips, the fluid bearing film between the shoe and the swashplate is broken and catastrophic damage can result due to galling between the materials of the shoe and the swashplate.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.